Wargaming Addiction Yearly Update

[Ferb]

About a year ago I made a post detailing the scale of my wargaming addiction. This must have struck a cord with many of you as it was one of my most read posts of last year. In that post I said I was going to keep a record of my wargame expenditure to help me control my spending. Well my latest post provides a breakdown of my spending in the last 12 months. The amount I spent may shock some of you and give comfort to others depending on the state of your own addiction. :-)

The full post can be found here.

Ferb

[petercooman]

I find that you didn't spend that much. If you look at other hobbies, the cost will be much higher. My buddy restores old vehicles, he bought a djnepr last year. I can assure you he paid way more than that just to get it, let alone the price of the parts to repair it...

[GordonY]

Yep, compared to say golf wargaming is a fairly cheap hobby, and yes I'd reckon that what youve spent is about par for the course (golf terminology intended) I'm usually around £130 a month for all my bits and bobs, thankfully the missus doesnt read this forum.

[petercooman]

It feels odd justifiyng money spent on a hobby to SWMBO.

After all her hobby is shopping for things she doesn't need 

[GordonY]

Yeah I can appreciate that peter, the deadly quote for me is "Are you doing anything on the computer?" I know as soon as I hear that, that there will be a delivery from Next tomorrow. 

[ronan]

I don't want to check my spending ! 

(...) compared to say golf wargaming (...)

What could  be "golf wargaming" ?
   

[Steve J]

Hi Ferb,
great to read your full post but some comments below:

£396.31 on figures, painted and unpainted
Well buying 28mm and FoW stuff soon adds up. I think I spent nearly £200 on a Western Desert FoW army about 5 years ago .

£84.78 on paints including spray primers
I spent I think nearly £100 on a complete GW paint set about 10 year ago and these have lasted a suprisingly long time. All I can say is you must paint a hell of a lot more stuff than me, which isn't difficult to be honest!

£149.78 on rules
Given that the glossy coffee book rules now seem to be around the £30 mark, you only need a few to suddenly have some large expenditure. I have sold off or am attempting to sell off stuff that I never use, or am likely to use in the future. Limited gaming opportunities mean that I focus on a few core rulesets, such as BKC. Less-is-more in my book these days.

£266.34 on terrain
I make most of mine from off-cuts of stuff at work, so minimal cost. I think I bought a batch of flock etc about 5 years ago and still have loads left. One advantage of now down-sizing to 10mm is that I only need one set of scenery .

£27.97 on dice
Hmmm, SAGA and FoW die etc?

£64.23 on board games
Never play them nowadays, though we did at Uni as they were so easy to store.

When you break the cost down to a weekly basis, it is not that much at all as you say. As mentioned above I am concentrating on a few rulesets and periods so that when I do get to play, I can enjoy the game rather than constantly referring to a rulebook!

[Luddite]

What's that - about £20 per week when you break it down over the year?

A quite night down the pub every Friday will cost more. 

[General Bt Sherman]

That doesn't seem tobad to me. I think I spent around that much last year at the two conventions that I attended. Maybe I have a problem... Oh well.

Bryan

[Ferb]

Truth be told it's not as bad as I expected and as others have said not as expensive as some hobbies/pastimes.

@Steve J - The dice were loads of Chessex D6 to replace my crap old dice and to use for Bolt Action, plus a bunch of D8/D10/D12's for Pulp Alley (which is a great game btw)

Ferb

[Hertsblue]

I am genuinely too frightened to add the figures up. When I add in books of a wargaming character the total probably nudges £1000 for the year. However weighed against a comparable hobby like, for instance, model railways, it pales into insignificance. Wandering around the Festival of Model Railways at Ally Pally last week we discovered that a bog-standard "N" gauge loco will set you back £45 - £60, rolling-stock anything from £7 - £8 up to £15 - £20 a pop, add in track, electronic controllers, scenery and ancilliaries and even a small layout will set you back a couple of grand.

Me, I'll stick to the little lead chappies. 

[Squirrel]

a bog-standard "N" gauge loco will set you back £45 - £60

And a decent one will cost even more, especially with the current exchange rates if you buy American stuff as I do 

Current hobby expenditure for wargaming and N scale model railways comes in around two grand a year, but then I don't often go down the pub and I've had to give up playing with Motorycles. Now that was REALLY expensive 

Cheers,

Kev

[barbarian]

When I was a teenager and used to spend a lot on GW products, I was a little dumb and once said to my mother :
"Would you prefer me to buy cocaine instead ?"

[petercooman]

When I was a teenager and used to spend a lot on GW products, I was a little dumb and once said to my mother :
"Would you prefer me to buy cocaine instead ?"

Betcha she would have freaked out if you came home with a bag of snow flock a week later 

[Hertsblue]

When I was a teenager and used to spend a lot on GW products, I was a little dumb and once said to my mother :
"Would you prefer me to buy cocaine instead ?"

If I'd said that to my late mother I'd have had to leave home even earlier than I did.